Kalamazoo woman appearing unconscious with son in her car, arrested on drug charges

ALMENA TOWNSHIP — A Kalamazoo woman who police say had her 11-year-old son with her in her car was arrested on drug charges in northeastern Van Buren County late Monday, police said.

Sheriff’s deputies found Ernestine Dawn Olson, 42, after responding at 10:49 p.m. to a report that a woman was slumped over her steering wheel and appeared to be unconscious at the Wolf Lake Party Store in the 26700 block of M-43 in Almena Township, according to a news release.

Olson was conscious but “not making sense on what she was doing and where she was coming from” when she spoke to deputies, the news release said. A child was sleeping in the vehicle and Olson told deputies she had left her residence following an argument with her boyfriend and “did not want her child back at her house.”

The deputies determined Olson had an arrest warrant charging her with methamphetamine possession out of Kalamazoo and Olson also told deputies she had meth and marijuana in her car, according to the news release.

A search of the car turned up the drugs and “several other pain narcotics” for which did not have prescriptions, the news release said.

Olson was arrested and taken to the Van Buren County Jail. Her son was turned over to a family friend and the sheriff’s office said it planed to submit a report to Children’s Protective Services.